CONTENTS

The reforms to the social insurance system will go into effect on
Wednesday as planned, merging the 133 separate pension funds that
existed up until that time into a total of just 13, Employment
Minister Fani Palli-Petralia stressed after a meeting with trade
unionists on Monday.

The head of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE)
Yiannis Panagopoulos, on his part, predicted that pension funds
would be plunged into chaos on Wednesday when the reforms went into
force, and that pensioners and the insured would suffer as a
result.

According to Panagopoulos, the administrative boards of the funds
being merged were not properly prepared for the mergers and would
cause huge problems in the areas of health care and supplementary
pension.

GSEE and the civil servants' union ADEDY also emphasised their
determination to press ahead with planned strike action against the
pension fund mergers in October, warning that large-scale protests
by unions and the workforce in 2001 had brought about the collapse
"of another unfair, counterproductive social insurance measure".

The nationwide journalists' union federation POESY has announced a
24-hour strike in the press and media sector next Wednesday in
protest over the new pension fund law.

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos criticised Turkey on Monday
for its stance regarding the readmission of illegal immigrants, in
the framework of a briefing of the relevant Parliamentary Committee
on the European Immigration and Asylum Pact.

Pavlopoulos said Turkey has not signed a relevant agreement with the
European Union, while it is not honouring the agreement it has
signed with Greece.

The minister also said that Greece supports the French initiative on
the "European Pact" and stressed that no member-state can manage by
itself the volume of the immigrant waves that it is receiving.

According to data provided by Pavlopoulos, third country citizens
represent about 3.8 percent of the EU's total population and the
annual influx rate in the EU ranges between 1.5 and 2 million
people.

The financial crisis in US and the rumbling in the European economy
after the rejection of Paulson Proposal by the US Congress and the
purported turmoil in ruling New Democracy (ND) dominated the
headlines on Tuesday in Athens' newspapers.

ADESMEFTOS TYPOS: "Government faced with the people's every day
problems".

APOGEVMATINI: "Crash in Europe - The global banking system is
teetering".